The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-06-11

the sweet g1fl graduate. Sne mas sent off to all the John Thomases of her ac- quaintance scented little notes of invi- tatiOn to attend the commencement exercises at the institute She is very pretty if somewhat crude, and wears banged hair and many white ribbons. Her gown is white with sweeping trail. IL is to her like foretaste of bridal finery. She is in fiutter and suppOses that this is the great trying ordeal of her life. She carries her di- ploma as young queen might carry her wand of office. Her valedictory is tied with blue ribbons and there is good deal of sentiment and poetry in it. She talks about the stormy sea of lite; about hope, the light that was never on land or sea, and she is smoth- cred in flowers when she makes her pretty bow of retirement. She has already gone through the inevitable ceremonial of taking with her school chum. They are to write to each other every other day. They are to keep each diary and exchange them at the end of the year. They are to have no secrets from each other. They swear never to marry, but after time, when they have been out in so- ciety long enough, they will meet somewhere, rent house or fiat to- gether and live inseparable for the rest of their mortal lives-the one devot- ing herself to china painting, the other to kensington embroidery or wood carving. We have all heard her rave over her bosom friend, Alice Maud, the animated repository of all her se- crets. Six months go by. We meet Agnes or Ethel, as the case may be- and inquire after the bosom friend. She draws up her slender body and her eyes look daggers, that John Thomas wishes were buried in his heart, so sweet if yet so sharp arc they. If you mean Miss smith," says she, Il know nothing of her. decline to know anything about her. She came to my house and flirted so shamefully with Mir. Brown that he has never been back since. shall cut her the next time see her, the hate ful old thing"
 Another girl know is the girl who is simply pretty. We'll, and is not that enough? Once upon a time dis tinguished New Orleans beau was be- sieged by fair maid and homely maid, who pressed the claims of in- tellect versus beauty. The homely girl exclaimed: Oh. you will surely give your vote, MT. D.. in favor oi intellect. Beauty is only skin deep you know"
 "Deep enough for me, my dear; deep enough for me, answered the irreprcs- sible gallant.
 And so it is for most of us. A pretty girl may drop her final g's, not own an in all her vocabulary, be as vapid as a shallow little stream purling down the hill- side, with an eternal smile on her red lips, glint of laughter in her young eye. She is pretty and she knows it, and that is almost enough. But after a time there will come day when the girl who was only pretty will stand by and look on at the triumphs of the girl who was wise as well as pretty, who fitted her mind to accord with the graces of its beautiful casket. Her few friends may bc faith ful to her. Her one true lover may still be fond of her, for it is not easy to uproot love, but her tondness is tempered with regret and disappoint- ment, and when the soft eyes dim, and the round arms shrivel and the satin cheek is an etched picture of life's van- ity and times failure, the girl who was only pretty turns her poor, scared face to the wall: there is no welcome lamp of intelligence lighted in the blue windows of her soul-dull, inert uncultivated. Skin-deep beauty wa, not deep enough after all.
 The gushing girl is nineteenth cen tury production. She giggles from the time she opens her eyes in the morning until she says amen to the Lord at night and puts her fluffy little head on the pillow. She says thank, awfully" for r"I thank you" She think, the grand, lugubrious music of the "Stabat Mater" "too nice for any thing" A kitten with its eyes as yet unopened, the Niagara Falls and Mir Gladstone, all are just too utterly charming and lovely for any earthly use." Her adjectives are all in tho superlative. She will gush over 6 pumpkin, over her sisters new baby over doggerel rhyme, over every thing she sees, everything she hears over every body she knows. If she i' here tonight she will say to me as she did of her new bonnet-that am either simply grand" or simply hor- rid" But then she is young-she is impressionable. She is full of some- thing which she thinks is sentiment Let her hug her neighbors' babies and her brothers kittens, and kiss the collie puppy and adore the new min- ister. It is all gush. It is the inno- cent GOhf. hea rfad UuSh of a srirl of